The retired sergeant LAPD obtains $ 4.5 million in overtime in overtime

A jury of the County of Los Angeles awarded a former LAPD sergeant $ 4.5 million after having noticed that the department officials had retaliated against him when he reported another officer for the invoicing of the metropolitan transit for an extension work which has never been done.

The trial of Randy Rangel, which spent 32 years with the department before retiring in 2023, was the last of a series of prosecutions involving officers of the Division of Transit Services of the Ministry for allegations of additional fraud, sex discrimination and lax supervision. Often, the police who pursued allegedly allegedly faced the reaction of their bosses after pointing their own colleagues.

In the case of Rangel, he declared that his troubles had started in February 2018 when he alleged that a sergeant, Humberto Najera, overrated on overtime.

Rangel said that he had reported the problem of the chain of command at least two times in 2018 and 2019, but the ministry never launched an investigation.

Instead, he declared in his trial, he became the target of a reprisal and harassment campaign of several months. He finally lost his position as adjutant to the captain, considered a springboard because of the promotion, and suspects that someone of the command staff began a false rumor that he was sleeping with a civilian secretary.

Fearing new reprisals, said Rangel, he filed an anonymous complaint in domestic affairs in February 2020.

After taking paid leave to recover from a shoulder operation for an injury suffered at work, said Rangel’s trial, he returned to work in September 2020 and discovered that his name was circulating as a source of the complaint. Under the rules of the department, this information is supposed to be secret to protect the denouncing people.

The trial indicates that a supervisor informed him that he was in the “reticle” of Najera and Lieutenant Leonard Perez, that Rangel had accused of not investigating the fraud in overtime.

The retired sergeant said that he had endured sarcastic jokes on his work injury and, after a meeting in which officers under his command were accused of having used the strength and not to report it, colleagues made fun of what they nicknamed “the incident of Rangel”.

Perez, he said, wrote it for a potential discipline, a decision hanging over Rangel’s head until the highest department cleans it. Perez denied allegations in court documents.

Rangel’s lawyer Tamar Arminak said her client felt justified by the jury’s decision, after spending years trying to denounce a division that was mainly managed as his own fief.

Najera in particular, she said, benefited from her close relationship with Perez, the lieutenant and other highsports. Even if he was paid in overtime by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Najera spent some of her work quarters to do his duties and other activities not linked to his work, she said.

“Having your textbooks, listening to conferences to your office, not even giving like …,” she said. “I mean, his hours (in overtime) were crazy.”

When it was reached on Monday, Najera said that it was said that it was said not to discuss the case and asked questions to the LAPD press office, which did not immediately answer a comment request. The city prosecutor’s office, who defended the officers listed as defendants of the prosecution, did not respond to a comment request.

The final amount that the city pays in Rangel can change, because such figures are often seduced and chopped later in the hearings after the trial.

Although some prosecution is inevitable, the tens of millions of dollars in money from taxpayers spent to pay verdicts or colonies on the behavior of the police have increasingly angry the city officials and the public, in particular given the disastrous financial despens of the city. On social networks last week, the city controller Kenneth Mejia reported that the city had paid more than $ 107 million so far to settle judicial affairs related to the police.

Department officials will quietly study the problem of increasing legal payments, in the hope of finding ways to suppress behaviors that can lead to such prosecution.

“Culture was terrible. I mean that it was greed,” said Heather Rolland, former detective of public transport services. “It’s a good old boys’ club.”

Rolland herself continued the city, alleging that she had faced reprisals and sex discrimination during her stay with public transport services, and a jury awarded him $ 949,000 last year.

She said that the leaders of the division have endeavored to hide the complaints of the MTA, for fear of canceling her lucrative contract with the LAPD. The police service is one of the many local law enforcement agencies which contract with the MTA to patrol the county bus and trail system.

The LAPD is responsible for almost three -quarters of the system and deploys, on average, 386 officers per day, more than half of which make overtime.

In addition to Rolland and Rangel, many other current and former division officers have brought prosecution in recent years. An officer allegedly alleged that the department continued him after declaring that he had been groped under his ballistic vest and other sexual harassment at work, while another officer alleged in his trial that he had been harassed after his colleagues discovered that he was bisexual.

Brian Pratt, a captain of public transportation services who supervised Rangel, filed his own prosecution in retaliation against the city.

The same goes for a former detective of internal affairs who said that he had pressure by senior officials of the department to support the allegations brought against Pratt. A sergeant who has been listed as a defendant in several prosecution, Ashraf “Andy” Hanna, brought his own legal action against the city, claiming that he had been a victim of discrimination because of his Egyptian heritage. The case of Hanna and the complaint of the detective of internal affairs are both pending, the city refusing to reprehensible acts.